Josh wrote:I used to work with someone who studied the flu in college and got her Master's focused on that (but somehow ended up in a profession similar to mine - I guess it's what paid the bills back in the 2000s). According to her, some kind of coronavirus epidemic like has been predicted for a long time.
The bigger question is how an epidemic like this hasn't happened sooner.
It's been predicted as a consequence of large populations, global travel, along with many different countries with varying degrees of hygiene, food handling practices, etc.
Now years ago, my GP spoke about how the world is “overdue” for the next big pandemic,
like the Spanish flu.
It’s thought, WWI military actions/travel worsened the problem, surely it did.
Non-military global travel is far more common today, the global distribution of mail, shipping, etc., it drives the world.
In WWI times, it was thought troops were infected overseas, then brought the disease home to the U.S. Several years ago, i read science is finding the disease may have started IN the U.S., on farms, the U.S. was still very agriculturally based. (i don’t believe there is certainty of origin.)
“The site of origin of the 1918 influenza pandemic and its public health implications”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340389/
.. It has never been clear, however, where this pandemic began.
Since influenza is an endemic disease, not simply an epidemic one, it is impossible to answer this question with absolute certainty.
Nonetheless, in seven years of work on a history of the pandemic, this author conducted an extensive survey of contemporary medical and lay literature searching for epidemiological evidence – the only evidence available.
That review suggests that the most likely site of origin was Haskell County, Kansas, an isolated and sparsely populated county in the southwest corner of the state, in January 1918 [1]. If this hypothesis is correct, it has public policy implications. ..
Others may know better .. i can only wonder ..
i wonder if some potential pandemics may have been averted, by improved education, hygiene, relatively fast vaccine development, etc.?? HIV-AIDS is not a flu-type virus, but it was linked to animals, in the 1980’s, it was a huge scare.
(i believe) more could have been done to prevent the spread, it continues ‘way more than it should. imho. it is nearly 100% preventable. (i believe) HIV-AIDS is “accepted” as PC, and this is the central reason it has not been eradicated.
i feel very sorry for those with new cases, to repeat, nearly 100% preventable. (i wonder) if this is the first potential pandemic that has been “normalized?”
CDC / HIV and Youth
https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/age/youth/index.html
WHO live in Geneva, Switzerland, on Coronavirus 56 sec.